Saturday, June 30, 2012

Political payback

TARBORO — Did you hear about the Boston area teacher who, while addressing a graduating class, told them there was nothing special about them?

The furor over his hurting the feelings of little Susie and Billy by telling them the truth was amazing, but was buried under the avalanche of support for his words from around the world.

What he said was true, just as it was in whatever year you graduated and just as it was for the Class of 1968 of Greenville (Miss.) High School.

But over the years, we’ve progressed as a nation to where we give feel good awards, ribbons for participation and jobs to persons who can’t even fill out a job application or make correct change at a drive-thru when the cash register tells you how much to give to the customer.

I guess it could be that even though the register tells you to give the customer a certain amount of change, you’re still required to be able to count coins to get to that point.

As we’ve progressed through a recently completed search for a reporter, we even had one would-be candidate ask what a resume was — and that was after sending an email professing all of their strengths!

Yes, little Billy and little Susie are special to their parents and family, just like most of us — but they face what is perhaps the longest row to hoe than anyone ever before them other than during the Great Depression.

Times are tough — despite the fact the President seems to think the “private sector is doing fine” — and there are college graduates from two years ago still looking for employment.

One of the old standards, a summer job for teens, is a rarity these days and, in fact, there have been instances where an 18-year-old was competing with a 50-year-old for the same minimum wage jobs.

No, there’s nothing special about this year’s class of graduating seniors. However, for those who survive and thrive, there may well be.

2 comments:

  1. Welcome to the "Land of milk and honey, where the street`s are paved with gold!".

    ReplyDelete